Insights on emotional labour research: a topic modelling approach

Abstract

Purpose Emotional labour (EL) is a complex phenomenon that has received increasing attention in recent years due to its impact on employee’s well-being and job satisfaction. For a comprehensive understanding of the evolving field of EL, it is important to extract different research trends, new developments and research directions in this domain. The study aims to reveal 13 prominent research topics based on the topic modelling analysis. Design/methodology/approach Using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) method, topic modelling is done on 1,462 journal research papers published between 1999 and 2023, extracted from the Scopus database using the keyword “EL”. Findings The analysis identifies several emerging trends in EL research, including emotional regulation training and job redesign. Similarly, the topics like EL strategies, cultural differences and EL, EL in hospitality, organizational support and EL, EL and gender and psychological well-being of nursing workers are popular research topics in this domain. Research limitations/implications The findings provide valuable insights into the current state of EL research and can provide a direction for future research as well as assist organizations to design practices aimed at improving working conditions for employees in various industries. Originality/value Topic modelling on emotional labor is done. The paper identifies specific topics or clusters related to emotional labor, quantifies these topics using topic modeling, adds empirical rigor, and allows for comparisons across different contexts.